Falling for Mirages

by Jennifer Cuddy


The age of globalization has its pros and cons. We are now able to share ideas and engage in instant communication with others across the globe. This open forum has unlimited power to influence our ideologies, and has created an all inclusive online community without geographical borders. This expansion of the exchanging of ideas is having a tremendous impact on our ( otherwise limited) social circles. We now have an online mystique of our selves that is separate from our real selves engaged in normal day to day activities. Most certainly, our online selves are a grandiose like presentation that is manipulated, and therefore, not exactly a true representation of who we are in real life. Yet, people are becoming more and more gravitated towards these online relationships with people that are based upon mirage like identities. For example: Do we really know the true identity of the person behind the strokes of a keyboard?

At what point does this effect our social lives with the real people in our own communities? Are we disappointed in realism? Do we prefer this cyber reality to the real world? Has this effected our definition of identity and intimacy? Can we be truly intimate with our cyberspace friends? Or to the more extreme: Are our cyber space friends really our friends?

One stroke on the keyboard, and a cyberspace friend can be swiftly deleted. We move on, ever searching for more intrigue. But does this intrigue only add more fuel to the fire of a growing disappointment with reality? How closely do these myspace illusions of our selves match who we truly are? Or are our online mystiques most influenced by an innate need to be accepted, applauded, or even loved?

Social networking sites are not very different from the formation of certain "clicks". We define and promote defining ourselves by who we present as our chosen list of online friends, and these "mystiques" become indirect reinforcements of how we define ourselves - which inevitably creates a more and more blurry representation of who we are as individuals. "I am not so and so who I choose to represent me, yet I want to be identified through their mystiques as being representations of who I am." However, I think more and more these boundaries are becoming obscured, and these online mystiques are increasingly becoming a very large part of the way we define our true selves. But what of the discrepancies? What's happening to our sense of realism?

I can see how enticing it is to be swept away with this online image because we can manipulate ourselves in to someone much more grand than who we really are. I also wonder what this means to us as human beings? Are we dissatisfied with our real selves? Also, if these representations of our selves are grandiose, then isn't it easy ( yet surreal ) to fall in ( false) love with these people? And then what happens? More often than not, people would prefer a sort of distance with the people they claim to be their online friends. But I do think that some genuine affections are being formed with these people. Unfortunately, the geographical distances between us prevent real physical interactions. It is very easy to subconsciously lie to people who you know you will never meet in real life. And it is because of this open forum/closed geography that any genuine emotions and affections are relentlessly unfulfilled. I know, I've fallen for these mirages to my own detriment. It has created this dilemma of wanting what one can not have. But is what we want, or better yet, is "who we want" merely an illusion?

Originally published on SearchWarp.com